Happy Easter! Or as the traditional litany goes: "The Lord is risen." To which the people traditionally respond with, "He is risen indeed!"

It is difficult in our day and age, with our post-modern scientific view of the world to wrap our heads around the event that this day celebrates. What really happened back then? Is it real? What does it mean for us today?

The first strategy a preacher usually employs is to tell the story. Just tell the story, that's what we all want to hear, right? But which story? Each of our gospels tells it quite differently. Our earliest written reference to the resurrection comes from Paul, who also tells it a little differently. Paul's not too concerned about the details of what happened but about what it means for the community.

The gospel of John, probably the latest gospel in our canon to be written, tells the story of Mary, Peter and the beloved disciple racing to the tomb. Only Mary sees the two angels and meets the risen Christ, who she first mistakes as the gardener. She has the distinct honor of being the first apostle, the first to witness the risen Christ and the first to bear testimony of his resurrection. Later tradition will honor her with the title "the apostle to the apostles." Interestingly enough, one detail that all the accounts agree upon is the presence of Mary of Magdala on Easter morning.

I believe that we really can't and won't ever understand the story of the resurrection if we disconnect it from the life, teaching, execution and death of Jesus.

This story begins with a Jewish peasant sage traveling around the Galilean countryside offering teaching and healing to people, inviting them to share their resources with one another, reminding them that they are all brothers and sisters, even the least of them, the marginalized, outcast and downtrodden, and that they have within themselves the power to live their lives in the Kindom of God. It was this Kindom, this realm where a sacred love and compassion, justice and freedom brought them all together: Jews, Samaritans, Romans and Greeks; rich and poor, free and slave, male and female, and the little children, too. This was not just a sentimental "feel good" kind of community, but one in which the powers of the empire and the cultural morays of society were challenged and subverted by a God of social justice and radical inclusivity, liberation and compassion, love and peace. To live in the Kindom of God is to have left the empire of Caesar behind. Jesus' passion was for life lived in this reality, as if the very action of such living would create the Kindom of God and overthrow the power of any other king or kingdom. The transformation Jesus sought was both personal and political.

The transformation began with his teaching about life in the kindom in which the last would be first, prodigal children would be welcomed home, sworn enemies like Jews and Samaritans would care for each other, neighbor would forgive neighbor seventy seven times, debts would be forgiven, God's justice and compassion would grow like weeds, everyone who seeks finds, the hungry enjoy a feast, those who mourn rejoice, and the meek inherit the earth. This does not sound like the empire of Caesar, this sound more like the anti-empire!

And what about Jesus' practice? Peasants share what little food they have so that the entire community could survive. Lepers, untouchables, are healed. Demons are exorcised, surely a sign and symbol of the overthrow of a demonic empire. And to make a public disturbance in the Temple at Jerusalem during the highly charged Passover festival in which the Jewish people, who were at that time an occupied nation, celebrate their liberation from slavery in Egypt! This was clearly a revolutionary vision, both culturally and politically.

The arrest and execution of Jesus should come as no surprise in an empire in which any political subversion was quickly and harshly punished. The Romans, and particularly their representatives in Judea, had extensive experience with revolutionaries and they were not patient or diplomatic in their response.

The crucifixion of a peasant trouble-maker from Nazareth should have been the end of it. His followers weren't organized or large in number. Making an example of this Jesus fellow would keep them in line. And it did, for a while at least. But then the women who had followed him began to believe that he was still with them. They were the first to be convinced that God had vindicated Jesus and his vision of God's Kindom. They were the first to tell the story of his resurrection

They and the rest of Jesus' disciples kept the vision alive. They continued the communal lifestyle of hospitality, itinerancy, radical inclusivity and egalitarianism that Jesus had initiated. And they felt his spiritual presence with them, powerfully and unmistakably real.

We can't really see, let alone experience, the resurrection if we don't keep the whole story in view. If and when we do that, it seems clear to me that what actually happened to Jesus' body isn't the point. The point is: what happened to Jesus' passion - what happened to the Kindom of God?

At the Westar Spring Meeting I attended a few weeks ago one person got up and told about how one day his six-year-old daughter started to ask questions about God. One of her questions was, "Is God real?" Her mother responded, "Yes, dear, I believe that God is real." The daughter replied, "Well then, is God real in the way that daisies are real or is God real like when you say 'I love you?'"

When we ask about the resurrection and whether or not it's real I say, "Yes, it's as real as saying 'I love you.'" It's as real as the Kindom of God is real. Which is to say, it's only real if it's real in us. The meaning of it all is still to be determined, the story is ongoing, the music hasn't stopped yet.

Jack Kornfield tells a story about a tribe in east Africa in which every child has his or her own unique song,

The resurrection means that we are still able to hear and to sing the song of Jesus. It is a song that sings of the hope and possibility for peace and justice in our world. It is a song that reminds us how scandalously inclusive the divine heart of compassion is. It is a song that invites us to join in the singing of our own unique songs, listening to the counterpoint and harmony we and the universe are creating together. It is a song about opening and growing through the many injuries, betrayals and sufferings we endure and the many joys, pleasures, and resurrections we enjoy. It is a song of opening to life continually new, continually being transformed by the everlasting kindness and compassion that is our true nature and our eternal home.

Every day, in many and varied ways, we hear this song, we sing our song, we make it real, and the Kindom of God once again draws near.

On Sunday, by the half-light of the early morning, Mary of Magdala comes to the tomb - and sees that the stone has been moved away. So she runs and comes to Simon Peter and the other disciple - the one that Jesus loved most - and tells them, "They've taken the Master from the tomb, and we don't know where they've put him."

So Peter and the other disciple went out, and they make their way to the tomb. The two of them were running along together, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter and was the first to reach the tomb. Stooping down, he could see the strips of burial cloth lying there; but he didn't go in. Then Simon Peter comes along behind him and went in. He too sees the strips of burial cloth there, and also the cloth they had used to cover his head, lying not with the strips of burial cloth but rolled up by itself. Then the other disciple, who had been the first to reach the tomb, came in. He saw all this, and he believed. But since neither of them yet understood the prophecy that he was destined to rise from the dead, these disciples went back home.

Mary, however, stood crying outside, and in her tears she stooped to look into the tomb, and she sees two heavenly messengers in white seated where Jesus' body had lain, one at the head and the other at the feet.

"Woman, why are you crying?" they ask her.

"They've taken my Master away," she tells them, "and I don't know where they've put him."

No sooner had she said this than she turned around and sees Jesus standing there - but she didn't know that it was Jesus.

"Woman," Jesus says to her, "why are you crying? Who is it you're looking for?"

She could only suppose that it was the gardener, and so she ways to him, "Please, mister, if you've moved him, tell me where you've put him so I can take him away."

"Mary," says Jesus.

She turns around and exclaims in Hebrew, "Rabbi!" (which means "Teacher").

"Don't touch me," Jesus tells her, "because I have not yet gone back to God. But go to my brothers and sisters and tell them this: 'I'm going back to my God and your God.'"

Mary of Magdala goes and reports to the disciples, "I have seen the Master," and relates everything he had told her.